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Alice, a startup that sells operations software to hotels, has raised $26 million in a Series B funding round led by online travel giant Expedia.

Expedia’s interest in Alice suggests that the online travel company is curious about possibly providing more back-end software services for the hotels that use it to market and distribute their inventory globally.

The company “is now at a completely different level,” when it comes to putting into place a set of tools that are broad and comprehensive and that are responsive to what hotels have said their needs are, he claimed.

The floodgates have opened – last week’s frenzy of activity, when Expedia and then TripAdvisor submitted complaints to the European Commission about Google, has clearly triggered something. To paraphrase, as both pretty much argue the same thing, the complaints centre on accusations of unfair practices in search which, the pair argue, is damaging the industry and consumers. No major surprises there, given that Expedia and TripAdvisor were original members of the FairSearch anti-Google lobbying group in the US. What raised just a few eyebrows was when, a few hours after TripAdvisor’s statement was released, ETTSA (European Technology and Travel Services Association) came out in support of the pair. ETTSA primarily represents the interests of the GDSs, as well as online travel agencies such as Expedia, Ebookers and Travelocity, in Brussels, but the decision to publicly back individual companies effectively puts the GDSs, under the umbrella of their representative body, also up against Google. Fast forward a few days and now Amadeus has decided to publicly back Expedia’s complaint to the EC.

Amadeus, alongside ETTSA, is particularly concerned about the likely impact of Google Flight Search, when it eventually expands outside of the current customer base of the US.

But for Amadeus, which just a few weeks ago saw its UK MD Diana Bouzebiba suggest again that Google needs partners in Europe, to now also come out in support of the anti-Googlers will speak volumes to those that have watched closely ever since June 2010, when Google first announced its acquisition of ITA Software. Clearly Amadeus is not expecting to be forming a major partnership with Google any time soon. Unless it is some kind of weird reverse psychology, of course.

Omni Hotels & Resorts is the latest partner to take advantage of Expedia's package solution. "Omni Hotels & Resorts is excited to further leverage our marketing partnership with Expedia to bring our guests the option to book their total vacation experiences directly with us," said Peter Strebel, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of sales for Omni Hotels & Resorts.

Partner Loyalty Enrollment: Initially tested with Red Lion Hotels Corporation last fall, the technology has advanced to now allow hotel partners to enlist and sign up users from Expedia sites for their brand loyalty programs. This program has grown to include three other chains.

MICE Booking Technology: The MICE solution is the first tool that truly automates the booking process for meeting organizers and hotels in real time, making RFPs (requests for proposals) a thing of the past. Hotels can increase MICE sales efficiency by integrating the MICE online booking engine on their website, allowing customers to configure and directly book their meeting, including group lodging, online. This technology further enables hoteliers to yield prices for meetings and groups, based on multiple dynamic criteria to increase revenue. The MICE solution is currently live with Best Western Central Europe and the NH Hotel Group in Germany with promising results. A global rollout will begin soon.

HeBS digital Blog Archive for the ‘Online Travel Agencies (OTAs)’ Category The OTA Billboard Effect or the Lazy Man’s Approach to Hotel DistributionMonday, August 1st, 2011 The following article is Max Starkov’s latest contribution to the “Successful eMarketing” blog on HOTELS magazine’s website The existence of the so-called billboard effect is not a new marketing phenomenon. It has existed long before the online channel became a reality. As confirmed by many studies, any marketing exposure by a hotel produces a billboard effect:  when you launch a banner advertising campaign; when you purchase a full-page ad in the New York Times travel section; when you launch a paid search campaign on Google, etc. The OTA Billboard Effect Lately Expedia reps have been aggressively using a new Cornell Hospitality Report, namely “Search, OTAs and Online Booking: An Expanded Analysis of the Billboard Effect” to convince hoteliers that they should use Expedia in order to generate more bookings from the hotel’s own website due to the so-called “Billboard Effect.” The Cornell Report, based on data from Expedia and InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) from 2008-2010, is a continuation of a previous report on the subject, heavily supported by Expedia. The report’s analysis determined that when an IHG property was listed on the first results page of Expedia, this created an increase of between 7.5% and 14.1% in bookings for the same property on IHG’s own brand website. In other words, this is a confirmation for Expedia’s billboard effect, which hoteliers should take into consideration when griping against the 25% plus merchant OTA commission. When these “billboard effect bookings” are taken into consideration, Expedia’s commission “would effectively be reduced to single digits,” states the Cornell Report. Hoteliers, rejoice! We have found the perfect recipe for success: we do nothing as far as marketing the property website is concerned. Instead, we plaster Expedia with our sales promotions and wait for the travel consumers to come to our own website and book. As discussed, the billboard effect is not strictly an OTA territory. In my view, the Cornell Hospitality Report is a one-sided research project, very proactively supported by Expedia, similar to the first report on the billboard effect published in 2009. Cornell, the finest hospitality institution in the U.S., should know better than to come up with this half-baked “scientific” research, which does not account for the complexities of hotel distribution as well as the “digital information cloud” we all live in and the resulting marketing and distribution channel convergence which directly affects the purchasing habits of today’s hyper-interactive travel consumers. This report makes conclusions that do not take into account, among many other things, the following: Complex Travel Planning Patterns in Hospitality Many surveys show that people are shopping around on a number of hotel and travel websites before narrowing down their search. Typically in hospitality, these sites include a hotel search on a search engine e.g. Google (65% market share), an OTA website, TripAdvisor, the hotel’s own website, etc. Therefore jumping from an OTA website to a hotel branded website and vice versa is at least partially due to particular travel research patterns unique to the users and not due to the so-called billboard effect: Step 1: “I always search on Google first where I identify a property I like” Step 2: “I go to Expedia and see what the rate for this property is” Step 3: “I visit TripAdvisor to read my peer reviews for this hotel” Step 4: “I visit the hotel website and book if I like the location, rate and what I have read and seen about this hotel”

“It is possible that AI will be replacing so many functions but that’s going to take some time. Self-drive cars in the next few years? It’s crazy. I would be the last person driving that car. I really think that voice, near term, is going to have the most impact. You saw the demo – voice is going to change so many things, and it’s just at the beginning, but it’s adoption is going to be enormous and it’s going to affect a whole lot of things.”

Chain hotels 77% more likely to increase technology investments, while independent counterparts prioritize room renovation

Reliance on technology is becoming increasingly important in the lodging industry as hotels begin to recognize how they can gain key competitive advantage with strategic technology investments.

cost continues to be the key barrier with technology adoption for many hoteliers

The biggest contributor to Expedia missing its quarterly projections was its decision to ramp up spending as it plans for the future. Expedia will be spending $170 million alone on improving its cloud-based operations, technology and content. This investment will result in improvements to all of Expedia's online business, but it also represents a significant ramp-up in spend for HomeAway as the home-sharing brand becomes a frontrunner for the OTA.

What he did concede, however, was that Expedia’s customers were searching for more independent hotels, citing pricing competitiveness, name brands appearing lower in Expedia’s sort order and the OTA’s brand-agnostic audience as contributing factors.

These extras include the opportunity for guests to choose their own room when booking, access to free Wi-Fi and other perks. Overall, this makes it more difficult for OTAs to create a seamless experience for travelers, and gates the optimal travel experience behind a direct booking.  With this strategy, hotels may have found a method to retain power over the hotel experience through online bookings

thousands of cancellations from guests due to the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Many travelers physically cannot or should not take their trips

Expedia Group created the Global Cancelation Waiver Program - a mechanism that will see every property in its portfolio automatically enrolled so that a guest's cancellation and refund can be issued if they wish to cancel a booking.

"We helped create online travel, but over the course of the last 15 years, the personal touch has been lost," said Joe Megibow, VP and general manager, Expedia.com. "In a world where every traveler and every trip is unique, Find Yours is our effort to capture the magic of travel and to make travel personal again. With more travel options than anyone in the world, no matter who you are and what you are looking for, we can help you 'Find Yours'."

Will the Hospitality Industry Tango with Tingo?

This new OTA site is an affiliate of Expedia.com

It further proclaimed that “In 2011 alone, Americans could have saved nearly $314 million if they had had access to a site like Tingo.com

Expedia has clearly defined ambitions to build the world’s first all-property solution for hotels.

The company’s reach gives it plenty of opportunities to challenge the solutions’ business of the legacy players, something that the company is eager to do

Expedia has always wanted to be seen as a technology company and often promotes its heavy investments in improving its products. But the ambition is greater than ever before, with the company building solutions for its ecosystem at a rapid pace.

Expedia Group Inc. is under investigation by the Utah attorney general for allegedly conspiring with the biggest U.S. hotel chains to suppress competition in online travel booking.

Beginning in 2014, the hotel companies agreed to stop bidding on one another’s brand names in Google searches in order to avoid price competition.

TravelPass claims searches for hotels used to generate an open bidding process where companies could bid on keywords that included their own brand, as well as those of their competitors.

Imagine if every airline used a separate reservation system to distribute flight information, instead of the familiar global distribution systems (GDS) in place now

As travel professionals are aware, Southwest Airlines are not available in most systems for booking reservations. However, they do not negotiate with distribution companies to sell their product.

Then travel companies would be charged to have the Direct Connect system in the long run, thus paying for the opportunity to sell American flights.

Fotopedia, the publisher of popular iOS apps, and Expedia, the world's leading online travel agency, unveiled their first collaboration by introducing the ability for people to easily find and book a hotel from anywhere within Fotopedia’s applications.

An Expedia icon is now available on every image within these Fotopedia apps, giving people the ability to view the hotels near the landmark they are currently viewing and reserve a room.

Now, when viewing a photo of a specific point of interest, people can click one button that will launch the Expedia Hotels application and help them find a hotel nearby. And in the event that the user does not already have the Expedia Hotels app, they will be directed to the App Store to download it for free.

smartphone sales will reach 982 million

Expedia reports that 65% of hotel bookings within this last 24-hour window are via mobile, and 15% for flight bookings.

Expect also to see increasing numbers of mobile-only companies entering the fray.

Google has finished putting all the major pieces of its one-stop travel shopping together. The company calls the offering Google Travel, and it has the system in place for consumers to try out

Google Travel is, of course, very much a work in progress. But that’s the Google way — test, learn, iterate, solve big consumer problems, expand it around the world, and then monetize the heck out of it,” Schaal said